A Border Passage

By Leila Ahmed

This is a memoir of Muslim woman, Leila Ahmed, about growing up in Egypt in the 1950s and 1960s. I really enjoyed reading about Leila's early life in Egypt and I was frankly astonished at the commonalities we shared as girls of a similar era, even though we lived in two far distant cultures, she in Egypt and I in the USA. She grew up reading and speaking and being educated in English, attending school run by the British until the troubles that forced the British out of Egypt. We played similar games, enjoyed similar friendships, family outings, sports: she did things that I had never pictured an Islamic female doing.
But still, she acknowledges that her culture is one that is hostile to and dangerous to women and that life as an Islamic woman is one of restrictions and limitations for most women. She escaped these restrictions by moving first to Britain then ultimately to America.
I was struck by how angry she is at the racism she faced upon coming to Britain. She mentions how she was spit on when riding on a bus by a fellow passenger when he realized she was not Israeli but was Egyptian. Her resentment of being classified as "colored" and therefore less human than whites appears throughout the book. But this is completely understandable.
She goes into some detail on the transition of Egypt from being Egyptian (as she was raised to think of herself) to being Arab and part of the whole Middle Eastern situation and not really African anymore. She also, towards the end of the book, traces Egypt's transformation from support of a homeland for the Jews in Palestine to being totally against the new country of Israel. This part was particularly surprising for me for I didn't know of Egypt's early support for the Jews. She also discusses how this change from pro to anti-Jew has changed Egypt's formerly tolerant pluralistic & multicultural society to an Islamic-only society where non-Islamics are openly hated and persecuted. It is a story well worth reading.

Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy

By Shlomo Ben-Ami

This is a look at the history of the Arab Israeli conflict starting with the early days before the Zionists had managed to make a state of Israel. Right from the start both sides refused to consider their opponents views as valid. To the Arabs, the Israelis are Zionist, western crusaders and invaders who have taken over what is rightfully Arab territory. To the Israelis the Arabs are backward, religious fanatics who refuse to accept the reality of the state of Israel.
The state of Israel was founded by the United Nations in 1947. The Israelis immediately found themselves under seige by their Arab neighbors who had voted against the formation of Israel and who refused to accept the presence of the Jews on Arab land, i.e., Palestine. The Israelis held on to the land and even expanded the borders beyond that stated for them in 1947. Then in the Six Day War in 1967, they acquired even more territory, including the jewel in their crown, Jerusalem.
What do the Israelis want? They want security. They want to survive. And they want the holy places that are mentioned in their holy writings. They especially want Jerusalem. What do the Arabs and Palestinians want? Well, what they really want is for the Jews to get out of the Middle East and go back where they came from. But Israel is staying put. So, what do the Arabs want if they can't get rid of Israel? They want a state for the Palestinians, a place where they can live in safety and security on their traditional homelands. They also want the right to bring back the Palestinian refuges who fled during the wars, about 5,000,000 people. And they want Jerusalem.
Back in 2000, President Clinton and his team put together the best compromise that was workable for both sides. Israel was willing to accept the terms, even to sharing Jerusalem with the Palestinians and accepting Palestinian statehood. But Arafat could not accept them. He knew if he went back to his people and told them they would have to share Jerusalem, that Israel would not go back to the 1947 borders and that the refugees would not have the right to return that his ass would be grass and that civil war would be likely between the more moderate & practical Palestinians and the Islamics like Hamas and Jihad. Since then, Israel has built themselves a safety barrier to try to stop the Palestinian terrorist attacks. The Palestinians are in a state of chaos as Hamas and Fatah wrangle over who is going to lead their people. And it is still a huge mess. But as Ben-Ami points out, if responsible and brave leaders would be willing to sit down and work out a compromise, then there is still hope.
Ben-Ami takes a close look at the process of trying to bring about peace between Israel, its neighbors and the Palestinians. He shows where leadership failed on both sides, not only because of mistakes and miscalculations, but also because the respective populations of both sides would not accept the compromises required for peace.
In the last chapter of the book, Ben-Ami reccommends that an international effort must be made and a protectorate set up in the Palestinian territory that will give them the peace, security and stability that is so desperately needed in the Middle East.

Review by Ian Black from The Guardian:    https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/feb/11/highereducation.news.

A History of the Arab Peoples

By Albert Hourani

This is a long book, about 450 pages. Yet somehow, despite the lengthy text, it seemed rather short on the kind of details that can bring a culture to life on the written page. It was pretty dry reading and I would describe it as more of an overview of Arab history. It was published in 1991 so is a tiny bit dated, but I understand there is a new, updated second edition available published in 2003. The new section was written by someone else, as Hourani died in 1993.
Hourani was born in 1915 in England of Lebanese parents. His parents were Greek Orthodox and converted to Presbyterian but Hourani became Roman Catholic as an adult. He was a graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford University and later became the Director of St. Antony's College Middle East Centre, Oxford University.
The book does not focus on personalities and instead describes demographic, economical, ideological and other processes. For example, Suleyman the Magnificent and Salah ad-Din are mentioned only fleetingly. Still, I suppose it is quite an outstanding work of scholarship, covering as it does a span of more than 1200 years. It is a good place to start if, like me, you are a little fuzzy on the history of a part of the world that seems to be in the news every day.

Review by Brandon Robshaw on the Independent:    http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/paperback-review-a-history-of-the-arab-peoples-by-albert-hourani-8458677.html.